Re: Deep Impact Kicks Off Fourth of July with Deep Space Fireworks



Eric Chomko wrote:
> spinoza1111@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
>
>
> : Eric Chomko wrote:
> : > spinoza1111@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
> : >
> : > : Eric Chomko wrote:
> : > : > spinoza1111@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
> : > : >
> : > [...]
> : > : >
> : > : > : The destructive "science" is in fact just as irresponsible, no matter
> : > : > : its physical results, as the 1945 explosion of the first test atomic
> : > : > : bomb by the United States in New Mexico, for the team did not at the
> : > : > : time know whether the chain reaction at Alamogordo would self-limit.
> : > : >
> : > : > : It is also as irresponsible as Truman's rejection of a demonstration at
> : > : > : a time when the peace party in Japan was in the ascendant, and the
> : > : > : murder of millions of Japanese and Western POWs at Hiroshima and
> : > : > : Nagasaki.
> : > : >
> : > : > : Hippocrates' principle is in fact generalizable and useful in dealing
> : > : > : with large systems. Competent computer programmers (all two of them, me
> : > : > : and John Forbes Nash) for example use do-no-harm in the form of minimal
> : > : > : effective changes and testing, while clowns who call themselves
> : > : > : programmers prefer risky and destructive hacking.
> : > : >
> : > : > : A politician unlike Bush, in dealing with the large domestic and
> : > : > : international system would have adhered to TRUE conservative
> : > : > : principles, which preach in fact a form of "do no harm" in the form of
> : > : > : Robert Nozick's ideal minimal state (cf. Anarchy, State and Utopia) by
> : > : > : neither passing a locked tax cut for the rich nor by invading Iraq, as
> : > : > : it turns out without provocation.
> : > : >
> : > : > : Self-serving scientific public relations written by ignorant people who
> : > : > : have been shown in Vaughan's study to ignore REAL scientists and REAL
> : > : > : engineers in a classist and in certain cases sexist and racist manner,
> : > : > : silencing them with phrases such as "think like a manager and not an
> : > : > : engineer" (to which the only apposite reply is "I didn't know that
> : > : > : managers think) are JUNK SCIENCE.
> : > : >
> : > : > I'd almost believe this, except that the goal was not to try and blow the
> : > : > comet to bits, but to loosen the surface layers of the comet in order to
> : > : > examine what is underneath it and what it is composed of. Think of a
> : > : > geologist breaking open a rock to see what the inside is made of.
> : >
> : > : The impact was of larger scale and I find it hard to believe that a
> : > : noninvasive method could not get equal data.
> : >
> : > Okay, how?
>
> : Come on. Astronomy has long known about such methods including infrared
> : spectroscopy.
>
> Then why do geologists still smash open rocks to see what's inside to this
> day?

Of course, they do so, almost always without harming anything, to get
information, and of course, there's nothing wrong with this, because we
KNOW the effects. We stopped killing large animals for sport when the
denuding of the American West proved to be an aesthetic and physical
disaster for people. Whereas smashing rocks is for the most part known
not to cause harm.

But no responsible geologist, any more, will smash apart even a small
mountain. Mt. Rushmore would not be carved today, and this is a Good
Thing.

Sure, Michelangelo was improving upon a block of Carrera marble, ripped
out of the earth by stonemasons. But you can't ethically "scale up" to
give a new Michelango license to destroy or damage a unique object
which has been unchanged since the dawn of the solar system for purely
artistic or scientific reasons, for the same reason you would not allow
him to carve a statue from an entire mountain.

>
> : > : >
> : > : > Maybe some military types got their jollies watching the impact and others
> : > : > got off on the "direct hit", etc.; but don't lose sight of the scientific
> : > : > benefit of breaking open a rock and seeing the inside of it.
> : > : > Astro-geology, if you will...
> : > : >
> : > : > Also, we should know what it take to deflect an object like a comet or
> : > : > asteroid in case one eventually does head our way one day.
> : >
> : > : We already know. Shooting things at it in Bruce Willis' style makes one
> : > : object, headed towards Earth, many objects, headed towards Earth or the
> : > : Moon (which from the tidal standpoint alone is almost as bad).
> : >
> : > : In fact, only the gentlest of actions will work but such doesn't occur
> : > : to thugs in NASA and the White House.
> : >
> : > I think you're overreacting here. The probablity that we caused Tempel 1
> : > to become a potential threat to the earth is about the same as that we
> : > caused it to veer away, thus avoiding a potential threat.
>
> : Even if the probability is vanishingly small, we set a precedent of
> : damaging an object that has been unchanged since the formation of the
> : Solar system.
>
> Unchanged?! No way! Every single orbit erodes some of the surface area.
> What we did was break off a few pieces to see under the surface in a
> manner that nature could not do for us. Sorry, but to make an omlette you
> must break some eggs.
>
Interesting; a Leninist justification for slaughtering the Whites and
the Kulaks. End justifies the means thinking ok for capitalists, not
for Reds? I don't think so.

Every single orbit erodes, but our intervention was different, more
akin to a meteor strike and thus at the system scale which is known to
have unpredictable, and for earth dangerous.

What I am saying here is that as a Senator or NASA administrator, I
would balance the ethical books. The books are to me out of balance
because the stunt was so clearly PR and not, in the main, science,
scheduled for the University of Maryland not for scientific reasons but
under a justification which for Big Science, and Big Scientists, has
become a "norm", in Diane Vaughan's sense, I believe, a "normalized
deviance".

This is behavior which mere language, mere words, sanctifies as OK even
when as in the case of Challenger and Columbia people DIE, and in
response, NASA refuses to meet the third requirement of the
investigating committee...because it can get away with that refusal. In
1963, they wouldn't have.

Today, NASA's flatasses would let the Apollo 13 drift away in space
while its astronauts strangled in their own *** and vomit.

Just as in the case of the Manhattan Project, which Einstein helped to
initiate because of the evil of Hitler, but which was taken out of his
ethical guidance after V-E day, the system, NASA or Manhattan, takes
upon an amoral life of its own which in these cases seems to be one of
decline: for one step, which fudges the ethics, makes a subsequent and
more serious step a normal deviance, and thus OK.

Endangering all of New Mexico in an unpredictable runaway chain
reaction at Alamogordo ethically PREPARED Leslie Groves, Robert
Oppenheimer, and Truman to decide not to make a demonstration for the
Japanese and instead to kill and maim.

This in turn prepared the team to create the fusion bomb, a bomb with
deeply minus zero military sense, which caused the Russians through
Fuchs to steal the secrets of same. With the result that today (as
former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara has pointed out) that our
stocks and that of the other nuclear powers are still an ongoing danger
to life on earth, and that at any time, the North Korean situation can
go nuclear.

Step by step, down we go. Get it?

> : During the 19th century, entire species were wiped out by people who
> : reasoned that their small acts made no difference. As it happened, they
> : did, and from that we can derive, PRIOR to "cranking the numbers", a
> : deep ecology for space, which we now know is not a dead, clockwork,
> : Newtonian system but vastly more complex.
>
> You make it sounds like today Deep Impact, tommorrow the Death Star from
> Star Wars fame.

In an incremental fashion, this is what happens to societies. And idiot
movies reconcile people to false propositions, such as George Lucas'
FALSE proposition that as long as you are cute, fuzzy, multiculturally
accepting of Chewbacca, and above all "like an American", you can never
be in fact the Death Star.

>
> : Needless to say, given that NASA cannot even figure out how to repair
> : launch damage in space, given that NASA cannot take other than grainy,
> : black and white photos of launches, given that NASA has authorized
> : Shuttle launches that will endanger lives, I won't hang by my thumbs,
> : waiting for it to morally and spiritually evolve to a deep ecology of
> : outer space.
>
> Your choice. When you go to the Air and Space Museum don't throw any money
> into the donation box.

No, a social choice which is normalizing deviance. And your "choice" in
fact, taken quite literally, forces me to "go" to this PR museum after
all, doesn't it. In fact, while being told I am free, I am in fact
marshaled by language and symbols into the idiot teeming manipulated
mass, whose opinions are like their arseholes.

>
> : OUTER SPACE IS WHERE YOU DISCOVER WONDER AND WHERE YOU FIGHT AND NEVER
> : HURT EARTH IF YOU STOP BELIEVING THIS YOUR MOOD TURNS UGLY
>
> You act as if the comet was the habitat for some extraterrestial life of
> some sort. It's a friggen rock fer crise sake!

Just as we did not know, only fifty years ago, about the effects of
tobacco on the human body, we don't KNOW what effect these "historical"
stunts will have. At the same time, the tobacco smoker circa 1910 could
reflect that his pleasure was the pleasure of self-damage.

He could in fact reason that his body, to him and his physician not
completely known (and not completely known even today) was an important
and complex SYSTEM and based on this could seek pleasures which did not
"relax" him by making him slightly sick.

Spinoza saw that the drunkard was seeking something which needed no
"scientific" proof to be something harmful, something that damaged a
complex SYSTEM.

Primitive man, unlike millions of men today, survived for aeons because
he had the horse sense to know when something constituted a system. He
could see his interdependence on the buffalo thus in various ways he
evolved what we think to be religious "piety", but which was probably a
set of rules, proven useful by their own survival in the
"anthropocentric" fashion, where the existence of the man-made rule as
preserved by the "primitive" tribe argues strongly for its
truth...because at least until the buggers had the misfortune to meet
the whiteman, they've been around.

>
> Personally, I'm happy we're using explosives in space for science rather
> than on each other hear on earth. Oops, that's happneing too. You should
> be so critical of the bombs in London yesterday.

There are in fact in cool light of analysis three possibilities.

The most likely is that there are terrorists who wage war on
governments, which is the Official Story. But even in this scenario,
governments have failed to explain how they can "fight" nonstate
actors.

The second most likely is that our governments have information about
these groups, although they are independent, and this is credible,
because bin Laden (for example) was our pal when he fought the Reds in
Afghanistan. In this second-most-likely scenario, our governments,
especially the US, reason, in a criminal fashion, that it is easier to
let Sep 11 or the recent London bombings go forward because the outrage
serves the ends of governments which are to control people.

The second most likely possibility is reinforced by the findings of
Thomas Kean and the independent commission of enquiry into Sep 11, a
commission that Bush resisted. In the words of the report of this
commission, "the system was blinking red" while Condi Rice apparently
read only the titles of urgent reports, and Bush played around on his
ranch like a ***.

The third likely possibility, which is a possible reality, is that
hegemony is in fact complete and al Quaeda is performing CIA style
black ops on the part of the G-8, at their bidding popping up to cause
people to stop worrying about global warming and Africa, and to return
to being conveniently patriotic John Bulls or Joe Americans, admiring
destructive space stunts and swilling beer to blot out thought.

Of course, in the third scenario, Madrid backfired, because the
Spaniards promptly hit the chicken switch as the Brits might: the Brits
might refuse to play the Churchillian damn-your-eyes role. Which means,
hopefully, that IF the third possibiity obtains, there is Hope.

I do not know which possibility is TRUE because underneath the numbers
lies the ability to THINK, and under the paving stones lie the beach.
I've "cranked the numbers" as my trade, and I do so better because I
know that before you do the numbers you balance the ethical books.

.

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